Is Creationism Adapting to Scientific Progress or Stagnating in Dogma?

[Les Sleeth]

Would you study the experience of Jesus if Christianity had not been created?

Surely you jest. If only Christianity hadn't been created! At least I might have a chance of studying Jesus without all the nonsense theologians have piled onto everything.

Hence why are you so interested in studying the experience of Jesus if it doesn't address his theological practises? Doesn't studying his life and experiences outside theology eradicate the whole figure?

Have you had a chance to look at Christian mysticism, as I suggested? Evelyn Underhill's classic is still relevant, and Jacob Needleman's more recent "Lost Christianity" offers insight.

I don't think Christianity represents Jesus much, most of it is Paul.

Studying Jesus as a normal person and not as the son of God is equal to studying a character that does not exist. The only reason you know Jesus's name is because it's mentioned in the bible, is it not?

The "bible" is a collection of individual writings and they might have been preserved whether or not anyone ever collected them into the bible. No one writing was an actual withness. It's too bad the book of Thomas wasn't included, I suspect he really was a witness.

But I don't buy any of the son of god stuff, rising from the dead, miracles, messiah, etc. I see it as Christian propaganda, most of invented to impress competing Jewish and/or pagan supernatural claims amd win converts. While I think Jesus was fully human, I think his conscious experience is something the world has seen very little of, and is what attracted people to him while he was alive.

I am not saying that Jesus wasn't commissioned by God, I am not saying he didn't show a chosen few a way to escape death. But popular Christianity has very little of that teaching left in it. To find that you have to study the Christian mystics.

In any case, my interest is the conscious experience Jesus had. I have explained why in earlier posts.

 

[DM]

The "bible" is a collection of individual writings and they might have been preserved whether or not anyone ever collected them into the bible. No one writing was an actual withness. It's too bad the book of Thomas wasn't included, I suspect he really was a witness.

You're somewhat alluding and giving me very ambiguous responses. Not that I want to criticize you in any way or form but so far you have failed to answer the very basic questions. Where did you hear or read about Jesus? Do you believe the discovery of Jesus was stolen and fabricated by a religious movement that we know today to be Christianity?

But popular Christianity has very little of that teaching left in it. To find that you have to study the Christian mystics.

Let's start with its meaning:

"Mysticism, according to its historical and psychological definitions, is the direct intuition or experience of God; and a mystic is a person who has, to a greater or less degree, such a direct experience -- one whose religion and life are centered, not merely on an accepted belief or practice, but on that which the person regards as first hand personal knowledge."

Evelyn Underhill
Mystics of the Church

The mystic in this case is Jesus as opposed to you or me. What I'm therefore able to deduce from your answers is that in your view, Jesus practised mysticism and was not killed, resurrected and titled the son of God.

I think his conscious experience is something the world has seen very little of, and is what attracted people to him while he was alive.

For the sake of unwanted equivocation, can you describe to me how you interpret a "conscious experience". Experience with whom? God?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Where did you hear or read about Jesus? Do you believe the discovery of Jesus was stolen and fabricated by a religious movement that we know today to be Christianity?

I've studied every bit of writing I could, including gnostic texts. But I agree that the Bible, especially Q and Mark, probably represent the best preservation of what Jesus said and did.

I think Jesus was a genuine historical figure (besides Christian writings there are other non-Christian references to him, Josephus for example).

However, I don't think what is taught as representing Jesus today necesssarily has anything to do with what Jesus was really all about.

"Mysticism, according to its historical and psychological definitions, is the direct intuition or experience of God; and a mystic is a person who has, to a greater or less degree, such a direct experience -- one whose religion and life are centered, not merely on an accepted belief or practice, but on that which the person regards as first hand personal knowledge."
Evelyn Underhill
Mystics of the Church

Underhill is most valuable for the collection of inner practitioners you can find in her book, but her interpretation of mysticism is skewed toward her own beliefs somewhat. To call what one experiences in the mystical experience "God" is a leap. It certainly is within the Christian tradition to call it God, so Underhill is just reflecting that (plus she was a Christian). To understand the mystics like John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, or Teresa of Avila, you have to study a particular type of "prayer" they practiced which they called "union."

In that practice, when one is successful one merges with something that seems greater than oneself. In that experience is where people start talking about the greater thing being God. But the experience itself doesn't really talk to people and say "you are experiencing Me, God." It's just a sense that you've joined something conscious and vast.

So a conservative approach (which the Buddha, for instance, preferred) would be to just say one joins with "something" and not attempt to say what it is.

The mystic in this case is Jesus as opposed to you or me. What I'm therefore able to deduce from your answers is that in your view, Jesus practised mysticism and was not killed, resurrected and titled the son of God.

I say Jesus taught union because if you study what went on after his death, there were a great many hermits living in caves in the deserts around Palestine, Egypt, and Asia Minor who were practicing union (check out a book called "The Desert Fathers" by Woodell) who claimed to be followers of Jesus. Since union was never heard of before Jesus, and since so many were practicing as Christians, it seems logical to propose that Jesus was the source of the teaching. This practice was preserved in monastic settings for 1600 years.

I believe Jesus was killed. But I don't think he rose from the dead. People believed all that supernatural stuff back then, and if someone was really from God, then that was expected. My opinion is that Christians exaggerated incidents to pump up the image of Jesus to the superstitious populations. There is no evidence that the universe can work in anyway except naturally.

If Jesus was manifesting and teaching the "mystical" experience, he might have been doing so at the request of some greater consciousness he'd become "one" with. According to reports, he does seem to indicate this. In history there does seem to be certain individuals who were very powerfully within the experience, and who claimed ordination. Of course, whether it's true or not no one knows. But it is the nature of the experience of "union" that fascinates me, and which I have studied all these years.

For the sake of unwanted equivocation, can you describe to me how you interpret a "conscious experience". Experience with whom? God?

Ahhhhh, well interpretation is very, very tricky. Ordinary conscious experience I define as to be aware, to know one is aware, and then to "retain" that knowing so one becomes more "experienced." So, for example, a nose is "aware" in that it can sense information, but if there wasn't something more, something which knows that nose is detecting information then experience wouldn't happen; and if one couldn't retain that experience, then one would not develop as an individual, but rather would be a perpetually blank slate that experiences but doesn't develop.

When it comes to interpreting the mystical experience, that is a tough one. I think for someone as deeply into it as Jesus (100%?) it might be possible to really know what you've become a part of. But for most inner practitioners, they themselves report that the experience is usually brief; it takes many years of dedicated practice to "retain" a bit of the experience. It is hard to be sure what one has joined with when it happens briefly like that, so people who call it God I suspect are just adopting a traditional interpretation.

The Buddha preferred to call it a "plane where there is neither extension nor motion. . . there is no coming or going or remaining or deceasing or uprising. . . . an unborn, not become, not made, uncompounded . . ." Similar to how Jesus taught it was possible to escape death (or ceasing to exist) the Buddha said, "because [that plane exists] . . . an escape can be shown for what is born, has become, is made, is compounded." [i.e., the born, made compounded human]

 

[DM]

Very unequivocal indeed. I'm starting to get the sense of mysticism and gradually processing a credible interpretation of a 'conscious experience'. Interesting views I must say.